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Wallabies coach Robbie Deans. AAP Image/Julian Smith
There couldn’t be two more different Wallaby coaches over the years than Alan Jones and Robbie Deans. Jones, motivational, excitable, volatile, intense, highly-successful with a 76.67% win record, including the Wallabies only Grand Slam in 1984, and capturing the Bledisloe Cup on Kiwi soil for the first time in 1986.
Deans reserved, measured in public, privately calculating, not as successful as he deserves to be at 55.6%, no Bledisloe or Tri-Nations silverware, but an eye on this RWC.
Chalk and cheese, alright. But not when it comes to Eden Park.
Jones was the last Wallaby coach to win at the fortress in 1986; Deans has his sights set on breaking the 25-year hoodoo-drought.
“What hoodoo-drought?” roared Jones two years ago. “There’s no such thing. That’s absolute tripe.
“You have to get that out of your head.”
Deans’ troops turned up on July 18, 2009, and were duly beaten 22-16 to continue whatever Alan wants to call the losing streak.
One thing is for sure, it hasn’t been a “W.” And this time the “W” will be even more meaningful than most.
It will be the last All Black-Wallabies head-to-head at the famous ground before a potential Rugby World Cup final confrontation on October 23.
Morale-boosting, bragging rights, brinkmanship, and brownie points will all be up for grabs, leaving Saturday night’s winner sitting pretty come October.
Far more so for the Wallabies.
To break that whatever Alan calls it would be priceless, especially after sneaking the last-minute 26-24 win in Hong Kong last October that would give the Wallabies two successive wins over their arch rivals after losing the previous 10.
Which begs the question: can the Wallabies win on Saturday night?
Yes, providing lock Dan Vickerman doesn’t start. That Deans selection has a huge question mark over it. Three years away from the big time is a “lifetime”.
Can the Wallabies win the RWC?
Yes, providing hooker Tatafu Polata-Nau, prop James Slipper, No 8 Wycliff Palu, utility back Berrick Barnes, and winger Drew Mitchell are on duty. The huge bonus would be prop Benn Robinson, no chance a month ago, a rough chance now.
The final 30-man Wallaby World Cup squad will be announced after the clash with the All Blacks at Suncorp on August 27. And the countdown will start.
But it’s worthwhile finishing this column with the quotes from Alan Jones in 1986, remembering rugby was still in its amateur days and every Wallaby had a job.
“That was tough, they don’t do it today. We toured. We didn’t just arrive on a plane and play a match.
“We had to get belted up every Saturday and Wednesday, and then had to win two Tests out of three.
“We must have done something right as no one has done it since”.
Best summed up by Wallaby backrow legend Simon Poidevin: “I can now die a happy man”.